Darren 🍬 🍂 🔨 Profile picture
Trend, value, quality, carry, and volatility... Strength is made perfect in weakness. See the pinned tweet for compound return generators.
46 subscribers
May 18 5 tweets 5 min read
1/ Skewness and kurtosis

* Everything has excess kurtosis
* Unlike market returns, individual stocks aren't negatively skewed
* Option prices underestimate kurtosis and overestimate negative skewness
* Implied moments don't consistently predict stock returns
* Sell options?? Image 2/ Asset classes have fat tails, and most have negative skewness.

Kurtosis & expected returns


Kurtosis-Based vs Volatility-Based Asset Allocation


Impact of Skewness and Fat Tails on Asset Allocation

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Jan 1 14 tweets 8 min read
1/ Fact, Fiction, and Factor Investing (Aghassi, Asness, Fattouche, Moskowitz)

"We reference an extensive academic literature and perform simple but powerful analyses to address claims about factor investing."

aqr.com/Insights/Resea…
Image 2/ #1. Fiction: Factors are Data-Mined with No Good Economic Story

"Value, momentum, carry, and defensive/quality pass the more stringent statistical tests.

"Many of the factor tests conducted in papers are on variations of a few central themes."




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Dec 31, 2023 29 tweets 11 min read
1/ Happily Ever After? Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce, and Happiness in Germany (Zimmermann, Easterlin)

"The formation of unions (separation or divorce) has a positive (negative) effect on life satisfaction. We also see a 'honeymoon period' effect."

researchgate.net/publication/49…
Image 2/ "The model's four terms describe different life stages for an individual who marries during the sample period. The intercept reflects the average life satisfaction of individuals in the baseline period [all noncohabiting years that are at least one year before marriage]."


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Aug 13, 2023 7 tweets 4 min read
1/ Short-sightedness, rates moves and a potential boost for value (Hanauer, Baltussen, Blitz, Schneider)

* Value spread remains wide
* Relationship between value and rates is not structural
* Extrapolative growth forecasts drive the value premium

robeco.com/en-int/insight…
Image 2/ "The valuation gap between cheap and expensive stocks remains extremely wide. This signals the potential for attractive returns going forward."


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Aug 5, 2023 4 tweets 4 min read
1/ Advanced Futures Trading Strategies (Robert Carver)

This really interesting book tests some strategies that I haven't seen in the academic literature.

Read Part 1 to see how the author builds portfolios; the new stuff is explored in Parts 2-5.

https://t.co/p1QdFCE9F1amazon.com/Advanced-Futur…



Trend and carry in various volatility regimes
Trend using spot prices
Carry with seasonality corrections
Value (5-year mean reversion) in futures markets
2/ Part 1: Basic directional strategies
Part 2: Adjusted trend, trend and carry in different risk regimes, spot trend, seasonally-adjusted carry, normalized trend, asset class trend
Part 3: Breakouts, value, acceleration, skew
Part 4: Fast mean reversion
Part 5: Relative value


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Skew
Fast mean reversion (approximately two-day holding period)
Fast mean reversion conditioned on trend
Apr 2, 2023 4 tweets 4 min read
1/ Natural course of health & well-being in non-hospitalised children & young people after testing for SARS-CoV-2

"Some test-positives & test-negatives reported adverse symptoms for the first time at 6- & 12-months post-test, suggesting multiple causes."

thelancet.com/journals/lanep… 2/ "The broadly similar pattern of adverse health and well-being reported as new-onset at 6- and 12 months among test-positives and test-negatives highlights the non-specific nature of these symptoms and suggests that multiple aetiologies may be responsible."
Mar 29, 2023 10 tweets 4 min read
1/ My conversation with ChatGPT:

What is the best way to manage an absolute return portfolio?

"As an AI language model, I do not have personal opinions, but here are some general guidelines for managing an absolute return portfolio."

chat-gpt.org/chat Image 2/ Do you hedge out market beta in order to make the portfolio more risk balanced?

"Yes, hedging out market beta can help.... This can be achieved through various methods such as shorting market index futures or investing in negatively correlated assets." Image
Mar 6, 2023 6 tweets 4 min read
New SSRN papers: March 2023 (I haven't read these, but the abstracts look interesting.)

Factor Investing Funds: Replicability of Academic Factors and After-Cost Performance
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

February 2023 edition:
Short-Term Idiosyncratic Momentum in Cross-Sectional Stock Returns: Empirical Evidence
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

Risk-based Momentum of Corporate Bonds
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

Extreme Illiquidity and Cross-Sectional Corporate Bond Returns
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
Feb 17, 2023 4 tweets 2 min read
Empirically, homeownership has not proven to be an "essential."

The things that seem to be intuitively true are often not reflected in the actual data.
Feb 3, 2023 7 tweets 4 min read
New SSRN papers: February 2023 (I haven't read these, but the abstracts look interesting.)

Intangible Value: An International Perspective
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

R&D, Expected Profitability, and Expected Returns
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

Jan 2023 edition:
Zooming in on Distress Risk: Bankruptcy vs. Other Failures
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

Credit Rating Changes and Stock Market Reaction: The Impact of Investor Sentiment
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
Jan 22, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
I will be vulnerable so others can see my pain, even if they don’t know what caused it. When people ask how I am, I will give an honest answer that puts the cross at the center. Life is mission. Mission is life. (Resolution for 2023… not a promise, but a “Yes” that is a “yes.”)
Jan 8, 2023 4 tweets 2 min read
New SSRN papers: January 2023 (I haven't read these, but the abstracts look interesting.)

Century of Asset Allocation Crash Risk
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

Perceptions About Monetary Policy
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

December 2022 edition:
Effects of the LIBOR Scandal on Volatility and Liquidity in LIBOR Futures Markets
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

ESG Gap
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
Dec 28, 2022 5 tweets 1 min read
Preliminary thoughts on a 2023 resolution:

Play as a deliberate path to learning. (Not all activities qualify.)

This allows dopamine to be associated with a positive activity and allows the activity to be repeated more often because the dopamine highs/lows are less extreme.
Dec 17, 2022 7 tweets 5 min read
1/ Achieving Sustainable Gains in Happiness: Change Your Actions, not Your Circumstances (Sheldon et al.)

"We evaluate a model positing that sustainable happiness is possible through intentional activity changes more than through circumstantial changes."

researchgate.net/publication/23… 2/ "Study 1 shows that less hedonic adaptation is reported in response to activity changes than to circumstantial changes."
Dec 8, 2022 5 tweets 4 min read
1/ Living in wealthy neighborhoods increases material desires and maladaptive consumption (Zhang et al.)

"Greater neighborhood socioeconomic status may lead to more material desires, which then predicts more impulsive buying and fewer savings behaviors."

researchgate.net/publication/26… 2/ "After controlling for age, gender, and population size, greater neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) predicted greater desires for material consumption, more impulsive buying, and fewer savings behaviors, while individual SES showed the reverse pattern."
Nov 30, 2022 5 tweets 5 min read
1/ Option Momentum (Heston, Jones, Khorram, Li, Mo)

"Individual equity ATM straddles with high historical returns continue to outperform those with low historical returns over horizons ranging from 6 to 36 months."

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… 2/ " This phenomenon is robust to including out-of-the-money options or delta-hedging the returns.

"Unlike stock momentum, option return continuation is not followed by long-run reversal."
Nov 29, 2022 4 tweets 4 min read
1/ Seasonal Momentum in Option Returns (Heston, Jones, Khorram, Li, Mo)

"Implied variance does not fully anticipate the quarterly pattern of realized variance. Options that performed well at quarterly lags continue to earn high returns in the future."

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… 2/ "This result is robust to the length of the formation period and is apparent in a wide variety of subsamples.

"Seasonal momentum is robust to controls for other option predictors and is unrelated to the quarterly earnings cycle."
Nov 29, 2022 12 tweets 9 min read
1/ Best Strategies for the Worst Crises (Cook, Hoyle, Sargaison, Taylor, Van Hemert)

"Futures momentum and L/S quality, in contrast to passive hedges, appear to have generated positive performance in the long run, particularly during crises."

man.com/maninstitute/b…
Image 2/ "Holding and continuously rolling one-month at-the-money S&P 500 put options is costly but is the most reliable of the candidate hedge strategies considered."
Nov 29, 2022 9 tweets 5 min read
1/ Trend-Following: Why Now? A Macro Perspective (AQR)

"Both the macroeconomic picture & empirical evidence suggest that strong performance for trend following may persist, making it a potentially valuable source of diversification in challenging times."

aqr.com/Insights/Resea… Image 2/ "From its inception in January 2000 to September 2022, the SG Trend Index achieved higher total returns and slightly higher risk-adjusted returns than the traditional Global 60/40 (Sharpe ratios of 0.4 versus 0.3 for the SG Trend Index and 60/40, respectively)." ImageImage
Nov 28, 2022 8 tweets 2 min read
1/ I used to do real estate full-time & stay connected with people who survived 2008.

Real estate is great if you can get it at steep discounts to current values.

But the advantage disappears if you overleverage or don't buy at those discounts. (Thread)
2/ A friend of mine bought ten houses on fixed-rate loans in a college town with high cap rates.

Unfortunately, during a period when most of them went vacant at the same time, he had to let the houses go.

Compounding rates degrade quickly with leverage!
Nov 12, 2022 5 tweets 4 min read
1/ Capacity of Trading Strategies (Bonelli, Landier, Simon, Thesmar)

"Due to non-linear transaction costs, the performance of a trading strategy decreases with portfolio size.

"Capacity has increased in the 2000s due to increased liquidity."

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… 2/ "Because low volatility and past accounting profitability are persistent characteristics, strategies based on them are highly scalable, including in the mid-cap range."